Apple and Google's Complex Battle of Privacy and Digital Ad Supremacy PLUS The Pandemic's Ongoing Impact on Journalism

April 27, 2021

The pandemic continues to reverberate through the business of journalism, especially in India where this wave is the world's worst wave. India is now accounting for 40% of all cases worldwide, and it's hitting media hard there.

But apart from the ongoing battle against the pandemic, the other major battle this year is one that involves privacy and ad supremacy with Apple and Google flexing their muscles on platforms they own but also responding to legitimate consumer concerns. It's definitely a battle to monitor because it will affect so many businesses.

Google and Apple's Shift on Ads and Pricvacy

As contributors to WordPress have mulled disabling FLoC, and as European regulators delay trials there, the anti-FLoC chorus grows louder.

Apple's shift on ads an privacy with iOs and Google's shift on third-party cookies in Chrome represent a duality, yes, they are responding to a desire for more privacy amongst consumers, but they are also seeing an opportunity to control more of the digital ad market. It is well worth following this and also seeing the nuance and complexity of the situation. However, for media managers including product managers, it's something that has to be on our radar.

The Facebook Oversight Board, a company-appointed body tasked with making content moderation decisions, is modeled on the American courtroom. The board aspires to objective standards and delivers irreversible judgments; borrowing legal vocabulary, it speaks of “appeals” and “eligible cases” and promises to issue explanations styled in the manner of judicial opinions. In the case of […]

Buying 'Street Cred in Podcasting'

The deal, for one of the industry’s earliest success stories, is the latest salvo in an era of rapid consolidation.

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. Seriously, this is just another sign of the consolidation in podcasting. It's part of a larger trend in the consolidation of media, both digital and otherwise.

Journalism Needs Public Funding

For the Left, it’s easy to hate the media, with its entrenched centrist biases and loyalty to the status quo. But a world without high-quality news is a world where meaningful democracy is impossible. That’s the message of media scholar Victor Pickard, who argues for a transformation of our media system away from the model of commercial news and toward a “public option.”

This is worth a read. The pandemic has accelerated negative market trends, and it is worth thinking of novel models to support journalism.

Personally, I think that there is something more fundamental at the root of discussions like this. If journalism is seen as a public good, western, capitalist societies need to have a conversation about the value of public goods. We have tended to under-invest in public goods while under-regulating the concentration of private wealth. It has left our societies less resilient to the shocks that we've seen in the 21st Century, financial, geo-political and now a crisis of public health.

Facebook Exec Worried Company Overstated Audience

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

And even if Facebook isn't overstating its audience, it often overstates its impact. Make sure that your efforts on Facebook support your business not just Zuck's.

Indian Journalism Hit with New Pandemic Wave

More than a year into the global pandemic, the coronavirus has exploded across India. The spread has been fueled, in part, by possible new variants and the recent holding of mass public events, including political rallies and religious celebrations; vaccination rates, meanwhile, remain low, even as Indian manufacturers have busily churned out doses for residents […]

I'm thinking of friends and all of the journalists I've worked with in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai as this new wave of the pandemic overwhelms the country.